


La bonne cuisine de Mlle. Lalonde and other macabre tales

by fivewhatfive



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:38:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivewhatfive/pseuds/fivewhatfive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>In many cultures there appeared a sound or visage widely understood to be an omen of terrible times ahead - owl hoots, black cats, vuvuzelas. None held any power over Rose. None had the unerring ability to quicken her heartbeat like the chilling call of "Someone sent back the food" or "Someone wants to pay their compliments to the Chef!”</em>
</p><p>Or, the Restaurant AU no one needed, but Gotham deserved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La bonne cuisine de Mlle. Lalonde and other macabre tales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maypop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maypop/gifts).



The radio was a souvenir from the orbital station--or rather, the orbital station was a souvenir from Earth's more absurd _let-us-launch-our-junk-into-space_ years. It picked up mostly noise, 24-hour troll rap battles and, disturbingly, Laura Pausini. Sometimes she could get it to tune in to _Farewell, Space Traveler!_ and listened to the truly fascinating anecdotes of truck drivers turned space pilots. My, what a time to be alive.

Rose turned the volume up and let static fill the restaurant. There was no light but that reflected by the floor tiles, large and impractically glossy white rectangles that nonetheless were rated five stars on furryliving.com. 

(They were right, one could hardly tell Jade’s shedding season was underway.) 

“So it’s come to this," Rose said, and sat down. Static, dim lights, and the cool tiles under her thighs. Perhaps she should’ve sprinkled a bit of salt around for further dramatic effect. 

Before her, the chalkboard lay inert. Rose stared into its darkness; its darkness stared back. A deep breath followed, and one glance at the ominous inscriptions upon the chalkboard’s rough surface ( _"Today’s special!!!”_ ) 

She was doing this. She was making it happen. 

Rose began to knit. 

. 

She was twenty-two when Mother concocted an elaborate ruse of a dinner and invited a Guillaume something or another to join them. He offered a private tour of La Sorbonne, where he apparently worked. She inquired about the state of his sex life. 

The very next morning, Rose left a note on the fridge announcing her intentions to discontinue higher education and unearth the secrets of the outer colonies. ( _I beg you, do not attempt to persuade me otherwise. Regards, Rose._ ) Mother responded by calling a friend in Orval station. Rose bought a ticket to Bisector Majora. 

Two years later, Chef Lalonde was opening Jaspers' Claw in a predominantly troll district with another human girl she'd met online. She'd stressed the latter in the spacegram sent to Mother, as well as the entirely non-alarming fact that this complete stranger turned out to have dog ears and own several guns. ("Regards, Rose.") 

Naturally, Jade and Mother now spoke weekly on Pesterchum about state of the art weaponry. 

Next was the troll who did their books, whose diatribe reached the kitchen long before he had. 

"- well hey, maybe I don't want to drag an UNGRATEFUL SACK OF SHIT AROUND. DID YOU THINK ABOUT THAT? ACTUALLY, NO, DON'T. IT'S GONNA SHORTCIRCUIT YOUR SHITTY THINKPAN. I'D RATHER JUST WORK FOR THE ALIEN MORONS SO YOU CAN KISS MY QUIVERING BULGE." 

She'd hired him on the spot. Gumption, you know. 

To think Jaspers' Claw had been the source of many a lulz--stranded technician who ordered bacon and eggs and was served bacon-wrapped sea scallops marinated in Chardonnay, the feedback on avant-garde cuisine such as Schrödinger's Duck--only to succumb to the whims of the orange creamsicle barons. Within weeks of the business' relocation to Prim, humans began to trickle out of ugly Majora - so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, peace out yo. 

Ah, speaking of. 

There was a _tap tap tap_ on the glass doors, which became a _tap taptap bang_ , _tap taptap bang_ by the time Rose put down the horrid socks she’d been working on and looked over the shoulder. Would that the sight of Dave Strider's head bopping to the rhythm was a surprise. 

Jade’s overcomplicated locks lit up when Rose approached. She’d known the sun had come up at some point because the radio had grown barely audible against the murmur of fellow daywalkers resuming activities.

"Have you come to peddle sick beats?” Rose said as she opened the door. “I’m afraid the coffers are at an all time low." 

“Nah, can’t sell talent.” Dave stopped a few steps into the dining area. Rose considered darting over to her occult apparatus and kicking the yarn under a chair, but the jig was up. The jig had, in fact, flown off the handle and pirouetted to a soft landing. 

"I assume Karkat has told you," she said, instead. Karkat had turned out to be a skilled harbinger of doom, what with the unnecessary meltdown the day before, barging into her kitchen with a chair in tow, where he proceeded to sit backwards. She had raised a single eyebrow at the scene and said, "That bad?" before brushing another layer of Blue Supernova Hot Death sauce over a delicate cupcake flower. 

"Dude can't get enough of me," Dave said. "Look, I thought we were making the swan sing and dropping the curtains and shit, not remixing the spooky tentacle jam." 

"There is no spooky tentacle jam." She stood on her tip toes and switched off the radio perched upon a replica of Rodin's _The Werewolf Thinker_. No use emptying her mind anymore; the spell was broken, the moment lost. "I will go down with this ship, as the poet said." 

"Cool." 

He wandered off to pilfer apple juice, as if the moment before hadn’t comprised of his friend’s futile attempts to summon the inner sight that once predicted three out of three Intergalactic Idol winners. There was a trick to it, a lull in coherent thought that allowed some intuitive snippet to come to the surface in that disaffected, oh-yes- _that_ -thing way her powers chose to manifest. She'd thought the act of knitting awash with white noise would've been sufficiently mind-numbing.

Rose hung the chalkboard back on the wall, tucked her needles into the violet sash around her dress and picked up the yarn ball. She could hear Dave rooting inside the walk-in cooler, talking to himself--or her; really, it was a thin line--and it wasn’t her gift that informed her that he wouldn’t pry, wouldn’t ask what answer she’d been seeking after a self-imposed majyyks sabbatical. Which was fine, she wasn’t one to volunteer such information, had no desire to do so. Mostly. 

She sighed. Times had changed. A foray into cooking that was both ironic and required actual effort at pleasing customers was a mathematical impossibility.

It was time to put Jaspers to the ground.

. 

She did not put Jaspers to the ground. 

. 

“I realize how this must look.” 

Jade’s eyes were very wide at the moment. Rose suspected it wasn’t entirely due to her glasses’ round lenses. 

“Rose!!!” Another dozen ‘!!!’ filled the space between them. Rose had suspected right. “Rose, I could’ve shot you!” 

“I believe you did,” Rose said, and waved nonchalantly at the hole in the wall behind her. It was a good thing smoke regulations were lax in this sector. “As I said, I realize this must look symptomatic of a relapse into the throes of madness -” The lights abruptly came on, infinitely brighter than her Zazzerpan lamp. Rose winced. “But I was certain this would work, and that covering the dough with a cutting board would prove fortuitous for reasons unspecified at the time.” (Her patrons had yet to develop a taste for debris-seasoned meals.)

Jade dropped the rifle on a prep table--strangely, not a health code violation--and flapped her hands. Her hair was a magnificent mess, obscuring her ears and thus the most helpful means of telling apart Jade’s bouts of excitement from exasperation. Still, something sour installed itself in Rose’s stomach. She could admit when she could’ve handled a situation better. And not blown up the front doors. 

"Would an apology suffice?"

Jade flapped her hands harder.

“I'm sorry if it appeared we were being robbed. I needed to gain entry into the restaurant." Rose picked at a nail. "I’m afraid your locks were being uncooperative.” 

She heard Jade sigh. It felt oddly as if the hysteria had been exhaled along with it, out into the open and then off into the aether. When Jade spoke again, it was in the soft tone of delivering something that did not want to be said. “Because the restaurant closed two days ago, Rose.” 

Rose pursed her lips. "Indeed." And then she'd gotten up to pee in the middle of the night, feet woefully shuffling along, and in that snippet of bliss where nothing else perturbed the mind, it'd come to her at last: the answer, a fruitful course of action, Cassandra's eyes openeth.

Jade had moved onto a counter by the time the tale was spun to its final thread, chewing a stick of celery and watching Rose roll out the dough. "Cinnamon rolls?" she said. 

Rose put more weight into the rolling pin, and nodded. "Cinnamon rolls." 

.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 19:40 --

TG: rose  
TG: rose  
TG: hey rose

\-- tentacleTherapist  [TT] is now an idle chum! --

TG: rose what the hell

\-- turntechGodhead  [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist  [TT] at 19:42 --

\-- gardenGnostic  [GG] began pestering tentacleTherapist  [TT] at 20:01 --

GG: rose!!!!  
GG: did you know your name is on the news??  
GG: thats so cool!!! :D  
GG: anyway im telling karkat about the reservations, hes gonna flip!  
GG: see you tomorrow <3

\-- gardenGnostic  [GG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist  [TT] at 20:10 --

. 

Jaspers reopened on a Tuesday. 

Around five, Rose ordered someone to fetch fresh alfalfa, lest the dust bunnies starve. 

Jade made sympathetic faces, which was awful. Karkat screamed about being once more knee deep into the pustule-covered carcass this restaurant had become, which was delightful. Truly, whoever could have predicted the chain of events set in motion by the hassled blueblood who stomped in a minute after sunset? 

A seer, probably. 

Rose's lips became a thin line, the color of the blackest plum. She picked up the violin, then put it down. Walked around the apartment. Smothered herself with a cushion. Envisioned a gruesome death. Nothing could abate the ire burning the very tips of her ears hot, nor the unattractive flush crawling up her neck. 

It rained; it poured. First the bejeweled, violetblooded Dreadmiral who spoke through a translator, as though Majora hadn’t been under Troll jurisdiction well before becoming a Bisector, and thus Alternian remained the predominant dialect. He spoke at length about the service she had done and would continue to do for their glorious race by serving a Baked Rolled Sheet Of Soft Grub-Gooey Dough Containing A Mixture Of Sweets. Furthermore, such sweets were now banned for sale and consumption by lowbloods, as established by the Cruelest Bar, under the advice of His Tyranny.

(To the translator, as an aside, he said her human thinkpan couldn't fathom the significance of devouring such swirly patterns in troll culture. )

Then came Maplehoof, apocalyptic mount whose color scheme made it almost impossible to read the spacegram it adorned, what with the unfortunate combination of light pink font on a white background. She had Froogle Translator read the message aloud:

dear rosie, im so proud of you! i heard the trolls totes named a law after you. fyi the obsrevatory *observatory aint doing junk next month so mby i could visit? XOXOXOOOO

And _then_ \- 

. 

At first, she didn't hear it right. Scanning shelves with her index finger extended, just as if looking for a word on a page, Rose probably _had_ heard the waitress come in--at times, it'd seemed her journey had led her across galaxies for the sole purpose of employing a middle-aged woman named 'Honey'--but just didn't spare it the brain power. If the cornstarch wouldn't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go into the storage room.

"I said they sent back the eggplant," Honey repeated upon inquiry, sounding mildly annoyed.

Rose paused. "Was that one of mine?" Persnickety as her new patrons could be about the undesirables of the hemospectrum partaking in the cinnamon craze, they took great pleasure in knowing lowbloods cooked for them. Must have been the idea of servitude - or Aradia's spit being highly palatable, Rose couldn't tell.

But no, the eggplant really had gone through Rose's hands. She just couldn't, horror of horrors, remember doing anything questionable to it. And it wasn't because overhauling a restaurant to accommodate the new clientele virtually overnight had her directing the pillows where to put the grubflour.

As it turned out, there was in fact nothing wrong with the eggplant. Nothing, except--"It didn't smell like licorice!" 

"I see. Did you request licorice with your eggplant parmesan?"

"I resent the implication that your failure to bring me the delicious charred remains of Mr. Eggplant is my fault, Chef Lalonde. I thought deep frying was a staple of your culture."

Whenever this moment played in the dark recesses of Rose's mind--walking to table number 42 while controlling a strange desire to hurry, footsteps drowned in chatter of the Empress' infinite wisdom in allowing humans to live once it was discovered that every single one of them could become a clown--it never ceased to incite bewilderment.

She should've sent back an eggplant carved into obscene imagery. Instead, she'd run upstairs like shrieking victim #2 while the killer lay waste to the sorority house, and now it was too late.

.

( _"Hey, Lalonde."_ )

In many cultures there appeared a sound or visage widely understood to be an omen of terrible times ahead - owl hoots, black cats, vuvuzelas. None held any power over Rose. None had the unerring ability to quicken her heartbeat like the chilling call of "Someone sent back the food" or "Someone wants to pay their compliments to the Chef!”

Terezi Pyrope's calling card should have been the red tint of her glasses, or the cane she used less to guide her path than to clip ankles, but for some reason Rose would always zero in on the same thing as she walked to Terezi's table. 

Socks.

Abhorrent, multicolored socks Rose herself could've knit in a drunk, technicolor stupor. Terezi's pants always rode up when she sat down, baring stripes, or dragon scales, or _dots_ that Rose could spot from a distance.

( _"Roooose."_ )

She watched Rose's mouth as she spoke, which had Rose theorizing she might've been hearing impaired as well as blind, which would in turn explain the shrill volume of her cackling. She ordered meals seemingly at random, complained about the meat being tender and complimented the olives for having the pit intact. She made Rose fantasize about rearranging the tables in the most disability-challenging way possible as Rose brushed her teeth and quite literally frothed at the mouth. She made it impossible for Rose to bullshit her way through a single day, because a challenge would always arise and require her wit to be at its--

"Dude there's like mad smoke coming out of the oven."

Rose blinked.

Then launched herself at the oven in question, the world rushing back all at once like chatter as one emerges from under water. Dave watched impassively as she fanned the smoke with a rag. If a tree fell in a forest whilst all those around possessed the cool shades, did it fall at all?

She handed him the take out menu. He placed an order that would salvage their weekend jam slash dance party slash ironic friendship update.

Then:

"Look, do I even want to know?"

.

TT: Let us say a hypothetical situation has arisen, where one has used their gift to predict the most fortuitous path for their business of choice. Said path has then led to one swimming in the proverbial gold, while every other outcome has been the opposite of desirable or fortuitous in any way.  
TT: Could the universe be the ultimate prankster?  
EB: jeez, rose.

.

It was Karkat who doomed them.

Naturally.

"You know what? I'm fucking done." He slammed the door to the small laundry room that moonlighted as an office during their weekly meetings to discuss numbers. The door swung back open. He kicked it closed again. It swung back open.

Rose sat down on an upside down basket and pulled out her Frigglishskine. This would take a while.

After a noise closely resembling _Raaararraauuuaaaauuaghghgghgggghhgh!_ , the conversation resumed.

"I am done. I'm so fucking done you could serve me to those jerks that are here every night on a nutrition plateau. Because that I can handle. I handle that so hard I deserve a fucking medal -" Rose's lips parted. "NO THE CHAIN DOESN'T COUNT. THE CHAIN IS MY FUCKING HEY THANKS KARKAT FOR STARING AT SHITTY NUMBERS ALL DAY AND THEN HELPING MANAGE THIS STEAMING PILE OF HOOFBEASTSHIT BECAUSE ME AND JADE ARE TOO BUSY FUCKING IT UP."

Rose smirked. A fellow human would've called the chain in question a statement necklace, but one did not need the gift of foresight to know that this information would only encourage a rant about how the statement was his undeniable skill in leadership, which none of them appreciated, etcetera, etcetera. 

"AND DON'T THINK I'M NOT KEEPING TABS ON YOUR LITTLE NOTEBOOK FOR PRETENTIOUS WIGGLERS WHO SHIT THEIR PANTS. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I DO. I KEEP TABS ON STUFF SO YOU CAN NOT LISTEN TO ME AND ATTEMPT TO DERAIL EVERY SINGLE ONE OF OUR MEETINGS WITH YOUR RAGING HARD-ON FOR HUMAN FREUD."

Rose tilted her head. "But I really do believe your rampant self-hate might be rooted in poor xenopsychosexual development."

She watched Karkat take a breath so deep he might burst, then let it out through a gnashing of teeth and the clench-unclench of fists. "Look," he began, in that tight way that signaled he was trying to be reasonable. "Since you're so shitty at being a leader, I can do that. I was totally _hatched_ a leader - and if you smile right now I swear I'm gonna shove sopor slime down your seedflap. What I'm a-fucking-hundred percent done with is this bullshit black flirting you've got going on with Terezi."

For a moment, everything was very still. It felt as if her extremities had gone numb, but the telltale pins and needles didn't strike when Rose stood up. What she said next was asked very carefully, as if the survival of millions hinged upon an accurate answer, or a failure to deliver would activate some cartoonish contraption involving robot sharks.

"Are you saying Miss Pyrope would be amenable to such advances?"

Karkat frowned. "What?"

"Or would she find them deeply unsettling? Perhaps even ask herself, 'Oh my, oh my. Could it be? Has this human changed the rules of the game?'"

It was Karkat's turn to freeze. "Oh, no. Hell no. _You cut that out right now._ Didn't you hear a fucking word I just said?"

.

“ _Terezi Pyrope. Tealblood. 12 sweeps old. Aspiring legislacerator. Proprietor of Feedingblock quote Caegar’s unquote._ ” Rose closed her Frigglishskine with a _snap!_. “I suppose I’m honored to find I’ve riled up the competition. Pray tell, O nemesis mine: is it true Caegar was torn to 23 pieces by his own cohorts?”

Terezi held her cane tight with both hands, her brow creased and lips parted. “How did you sneak up on me?” She gave the air a mighty sniff, then scowled at a ficus several inches to Rose’s right. “What _is_ that?”

“Fake Chanel nº5,” Rose said. “Human criminals use it to throw off police hounds.” She pushed off the wall of Terezi’s hive, a generic, block-like structure much like every other hive the Trolls had built on Majora. Apparently ‘colonizing’ was a recent addition to their war vocabulary. “It has come to my attention that my failure to reciprocate your significant efforts to chart the perilous waters of my psyche could be construed as rude. I'd like to fix that.”

Terezi was silent, but a minute wrinkle had reappeared in her brow. She was thinking it over. And maybe it was the sight rearing up its fickle head once more, but Rose was suddenly certain that, given any more time, Terezi would unveil the charade at the exact time Rose deigned to open her mouth. Words would overlap. Misunderstandings would happen. They would skirt the slippery seams of romcom hell. She had to strike now.

"We have both been blind. You have replenished an inner fountain I believed extinguished, for I had no fucks to give," Rose said, and held out a cardboard box. "So accept my gentle offering, dear heart, and let us bury the hatchet."

Terezi smirked. "Thank you, lavender mittens."

Apparently, Terezi's cane concealed a blade. Such discovery was made once it'd already pierced the cardboard box several times, to Terezi's unabashed glee. It didn't matter; Medea's gift had been delivered. Disaster would not be stopped. How could it, when it was already here?

Terezi's full body shudder once she finally opened the box nearly caused her to fall backwards.

"A bucket of fried chicken is considered a declaration of deep kinship and eternal devotion among humans," said Rose, for the spirit of helpfulness was well and alive. "I've sent several to your restaurant so that all may share our joy."

.

\-- gallowsCalibrator[GC] began trolling tentacleTherapist[TT] at 19:55 --

GC: YOUR F1LTHY BUCK3TS H4V3 B33N R3TURN3D. YOU W1LL P4Y FOR YOUR F4K3 CH4N3L SM3LL1NG D3C31T, PUMPK1N P13.

.

Friday morning, the situation presented itself for what it was.

Rose thumbed through an old copy of _A Rumba With Dragons_ , lying on a yoga mat with both legs propped up on the stark white walls of her living room. As far as Rose knew, this constituted no real yoga position and offered no benefits other than eventually making her arms tire and her feet go numb. That was usually when Rose would extract herself from said position, sit up and wallow in the stupidity of her actions.

She’d engaged Terezi Pyrope in a game of live action chess, and it’d been a mistake. Already Rose had been fed poached brains--grubs, she was assured--and spent her afternoon bribing a nerdy troll into pouring a slime-thickener into Terezi’s recuperacoon.

After that, there’d been the terrible wizard slash sent to all of Rose’s contacts from her own email account, and the ongoing mystery of how a layer of superglue had ended up on the frames of Terezi’s glasses. Then, of course, there was the hassle of driving around a troll with a pair of glasses glued to her tongue who nevertheless wouldn’t stop talking, only to arrive at the hospital and hear Terezi tell the nurses about their interspecies little miracle. It needed to stop.

And Rose had gone over it, written down all the relevant hypotheses and how to nullify them, yet her studies all pointed to the same troubling finding: she would not stop because she didn't want to.

She lay down again.

"Lalonde, you look stupid."

Terezi’s upside down face blocked Rose’s privileged view of a stain on the ceiling. Ah.

“I don’t remember inviting you into my home.”

Terezi scoffed. “I’ve had a key for ages!”

The face disappeared, then returned at much closer quarters as Terezi herself lay down, propped up on her forearms. There was really no telling the human body not to flinch upon finding another face suddenly this close. There was also no telling the floor to disappear, so Rose's body arrived at an awkward compromise, tucking her chin into her neck.

“What are you doing?”

Terezi’s lips pulled back into the customary shark smile. Not only was it obnoxiously close, but it stood directly in Rose’s line of sight, inescapable. A clearer invitation for Rose to prod Terezi's gums with a fingernail had never been uttered.

Rose lifted her hand.

Terezi leaned down.

By the time it registered that the bridge of Rose’s nose and her left cheek were wet, the decision had already been made. Facts misinterpreted. Romcom hell breached.

Rose tilted her chin up and caught Terezi’s mouth mid-retreat. Spacepedia’s entry on sloppy troll-human makeouts found its first legitimate source.

Except Terezi pulled back, possibly with enough force to fall on her ass. Or perhaps she’d rolled away, Rose wasn’t sure. A strong desire for sudden death took precedence over such observations.

“Why did you do that?”

Rose, upright by then, stated, “You licked my face.” Apparently it was something that bore repeating.

“I was looking at it! Seduction is the last resource in a legislacerator's manual," Terezi said. "This greatly advances the investigation. There were games to be played, Rose.”

"How shocking." But then: "Wait, what investigation?"

Terezi stood up, offering a glimpse of striped socks in the process, and straightened her glasses. When she tugged at the imaginary sleeves of her suit, like a character in _Law & Order: Space Homicide_, Rose reached for her book and considered the irony of _Rumba With Dragons_ becoming itself a murder weapon.

"I was gonna wear an outfit for this," Terezi muttered, scowling. "I didn't even get to rough you up."

"Salacious."

Terezi cleared her throat. "The courtblock will now hear the case of Rose Lalonde, guilty of serving frozen meals and conspiring to overthrow all order. First!" Rose jumped as Terezi's hand shot out, pointing a bony finger at the vicinity of her ear. "You've obtained Empire secrets regarding the Cherub Massacre, employing illegal means and snarky shenanigans."

"I have no idea-"

"The guilty may not speak in the courtblock!"

Rose extended both middle fingers.

"Noted." Terezi turned, making a sweeping gesture. "The prosecution brings to His Tyranny's attention the mounting evidence of Miss Gloomy Blackberry Lipstick's continued use of cherub imagery to manipulate the snobby elite. As you well know, before their demise at the hands of Her Imperious Condescension, cherub youth exhibited swirly patterns on their cheeks, patterns every troll subconsciously recognizes from subliminal notes in their schoolfeeding. Miss Lalonde has exploited such imagery time and again in her delicious dealings with cinnamon rolls."

"She has made a mockery of Alternian law by indirectly encouraging the Temporary Council For Terror And Order to lobby for strong laws against lowbloods consuming said deliciousness, and amassed a fortune by making famished seadwellers her unwitting accomplices." 

Rose arranged her legs one over the other and let her hands rest atop them. She called it the Ennuied Lotus position. "Terezi," she said, perhaps not as strongly as desired. There was a new hypothesis to work with, now, and it ought to be given voice. "Am I wrong to interpret that our budding proximity was in fact a ploy to expose my alleged misdoings?"

She felt strange; hollow. Stupid, perhaps. No, definitely stupid--the remnants of romcom madness were still a taste in her mouth. Also: lipstick. How odd, to experience a sense of loss over something that had never existed.

Terezi was speaking to her. Rose watched her lips move, making nary a sound. There was a smear of dark Persian indigo along her pointy chin; a darker-yet stain blooming on the wall directly behind her.

It pulsed, sprouting black vines whenever it did so, and swelling in size. Rose stared. Something about it felt exactly like retracing a recurring dream, that deep sense of _oh yes, this is what happens next_.

Her eyes drifted back to Terezi, who was flailing her arms, now, for some reason. Silly, silly T erezi Pyr o pe.

.

Rose gasped.

Something was trapping her wrists. She yanked; it didn’t yield. She tried again and it slapped her hands.

Oh.

Rose stopped struggling, which turned out to be the solution to a lot of her current problems. One: the fact she was waist-deep in freezing water. Two: how nothing was actually trapping her hands, yet her hands were trapping her needlewands. Rose’s grip was so tight she could feel the eldritch carvings on the wands digging into her palms.

“Give up, Chef Prissypants!” Terezi was saying, still tugging at the wands.

Watching her own fingers unfurl, dropping the wands, was very much the out-of-body experience.

Then the abrupt lack of resistance made Terezi fall back, going under and emerging in a fit of coughs and spluttering, and Rose’s self-awareness returned at once to pat herself on the back.

They returned to shore, where both proceeded to ignore the deep grooves on the ground and several containers dented like soda cans. Terezi had tied a rope around herself to assist in her blind marine shenanigans, and now no one could loosen the knot.

This, as they said, was stupid.

.

“You should’ve just told me you were following the advice of the dark gods. I would’ve dropped the charges.”

Rose grimaced. Right, the fake trial. The sloppy fake _kiss_. She wrung her skirt harder, watching the ensuing pitter-patter of water drops, and said, “Okay.” No sarcasm, no _I shall file that away for future use_. A spectacle unfolded in a clandestine harbor: Rose Lalonde was tired. 

“I’m going home.”

“Wait!”

She turned around in time to gather that Terezi was about to invade her personal space again. Fortunately, Terezi’s hand at the back of her neck did not require much rationalization, nor the awkward bump of their noses. Rose Lalonde was tired, so she kissed back--properly, this time--and hoped she tasted of brine. Perhaps mud. Her hand came up to push Terezi’s glasses out of the way, but they got snagged in a tangle of wet hair. It was awful. They kissed again.

Rose broke it off by slamming the heels of her palms against Terezi’s collarbones and unceremoniously retrieving her wands from where they lay inert on the ground, now reverted to knitting needles. She had no idea where they were, but the bright side of the occasional relapse into the bloodeldritch throes of the broodfester tongues was leaving a reliable trail of destruction. She might even make it home in time for dinner.

Or she’d turn a corner and come to a startled halt before a massive white dragon.

“That’s my lusus,” Terezi said. “We followed you here.”

“Congratulations, you’ve brought your mom to your first date. My expectations have been obliterated.”

“Baby, don’t be that way!”

.

\-- tentacleTherapist  [TT] began pestering carcinoGeneticist  [CG] at 06:12 --

TT: Well, it appears I have indeed embarked in a black dalliance.  
TT: I understand you're something of a relationship expert, so I'll defer to your advice.   
TT: Would it be considered a cross-cultural faux pas if one was to engage in vigorous interspecies intercourse while their partner's lusus slept nearby?  
CG: FUCK YOU LALONDE.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] blocked tentacleTherapist  [TT] at 06:15 --

...

 

_Jaspers’ Claw is a restaurant in the southeastern quadrant of Bisector Majora, Oreo Way. It is run by chef proprietor Rose Lalonde, and was first opened in a building which had previously been used as a morgue. Despite first serving food similar to that of the human Italian sub-species, it has become well known for serving dishes inspired by Troll culture. The number of staff in the kitchen has increased from two when it first opened to 42, resulting in a ratio of one chef to one customer. It was recently awarded three Golden Beetles. Before that, the restaurant suffered from the largest ever recorded grimdark infestation with over 413 diners falling unwell. ___

**Author's Note:**

> All my thanks to brangela for helping me brainstorm and jaefru who beta'd the hell out of this. Remaining mistakes are all mine. All of them.
> 
> @maypop! This ended up being a lot less "Rose and Terezi run competing restaurants" than I wanted it to, but I hope some of it brings you joy anyway. I'd also like to apologize for the shameful lack of Troll Gordon Ramsay.


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